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At its annual Safety Seminar held this week in Japan, Toyota has revealed a new technology that uses sonar waves to detect obstacles on a vehicles path at parking speeds.

Parking in increasingly tight spaces in urban environs can get tricky and low obstacles are not always visible to a driver. Toyota’s new technology called Intelligent Clearance Sonar detects obstacles in a vehicle’s path while parking. The system sounds an alarm while reducing engine power and automatically applies the brakes if there is a risk of collision.

Another system called Drive-Start Control is used to detect if a wrong gear has been selected when the driver uses the accelerator pedal (eg, selecting forward gear instead of reverse while parking). The system flashes a warning and reduces engine output to prevent sudden acceleration.

Toyota will be introducing both these safety systems in their future vehicles.

The Japanese car maker has further developed its Pre-Crash safety system that features in a number of Toyota and Lexus models. A collision avoidance system is now integrated to reduce or prevent rear end impacts altogether even at high speeds.